CHALLENGE OF REPEAL PROCESS SHOWS NEED FOR TRUMP TO UNDO CONGRESSIONAL SPECIAL EXEMPTION

WASHINGTON, DC – Following another failed attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act Heather Higgins, founder of the Repeal & Reform Coalition and president and CEO of Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) said:

“The difficultly of passing even the ‘skinny’ bill highlights that if President Trump is sincere about wanting a serious effort at repeal and reform of health care, he must tell Congress that he will be ending the Obama Administration’s Congressional special exemption, and that the Affordable Care Act will apply to Congress and all their staff the same as it does to all other Americans on the exchanges, as the law intended.

“That will end this Moscow on the Potomac behavior, something President Trump when campaigning promised to do, and that Vice President Pence on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ on Wednesday acknowledged was ‘one set of rules for the American people, and one set for the political class’.

“More importantly, strategically removing the exemptions and subsidies would mean that Congress would know they will have to eat their own cooking -- something Members and staff, of both parties, have tried frantically to avoid, since the law was first implemented in 2013. Nothing would create a greater incentive than personal skin in the game to genuine reform that will actually lower costs, improve choices, and deliver the real reforms that voters expected to see when they voted in this President and Congress.”

IWV was the first group to target the OPM ruling in 2013 by launching No Washington Exemption, a multi-faceted project exposing how the special carve-out shields Congress from feeling the pain that everyday Americans feel under the current system.

Independent Women’s Voice is an advocacy 501(c)(4) that fights for women and families by effectively expanding support among women, independents, and millennials for policy solutions that aren’t just well intended, but actually enhance people’s freedom, choices, and opportunities.